1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of judging a direction of blur represented in an input image and an apparatus therefor. The present invention also relates to a computer-readable recording medium storing a program that causes a computer to execute the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a result of reduction in size and weight of imaging devices such as digital cameras and camera phones, camera shake tends to occur due to imaging device movement at the time of shuttering. In addition, progress is being made in increase in the number of pixels and in installation of a zooming function as standard equipment. Therefore, camera shake tends to become conspicuous in photographed images.
As a method of detecting such camera shake has been known a method using an angular rate sensor installed in an imaging device (see U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20030002746).
However, the method described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20030002746 needs special hardware such as an angular rate sensor, and installation of such hardware in a small imaging device such as a camera phone is difficult.
Furthermore, no method has been disclosed for detecting camera shake based only on a photographed image in the case where no information is available on camera shake detected by such hardware.